Urban Regimes in Small Russian Towns

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 812-833 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeri Ledyaev ◽  
Alla Chirikova
Keyword(s):  
Local Politics ◽  
Strong Dependence ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Personal Factors ◽  
Urban Regimes ◽  
Formal Organizations ◽  
The Status ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Russian Politics

This article presents the outcomes of a research project conducted in five small Russian towns. Different coalitions between local actors take place in all communities. However, coalitions that meet the criteria of the urban regime (in Stone's classical interpretation) have been discovered, with certain reservations, only in two towns. For a number of characteristics, these coalitions differed from regimes in American and European towns: often not quite voluntary nature of coalitions, prevalence of egoistic motives in the coalition–building, strong dependence of the regimes on the personal factor (personal qualities and resources of local administrators, their experience, relations with regional elites, etc.), absence of formal organizations able to coordinate the interests of coalition members, etc. In the three other local communities, urban regimes have not been built due to personal factors, frequent changes in the local government leadership, or the role of external factors (the nature of the relationship of local elites with regional and federal authorities, methods of influence of regional authorities on local politics). In the public agenda of the regimes (quasi–regimes), the elements of the status quo and, to a lesser extent, growth, prevail. The outcomes of study allow us to conclude that despite the authoritarian nature of the Russian politics and the differences between Russian and American contexts, urban regimes analysis is quite applicable for the study of power in Russian local communities.

Preliminary Report on the Research of “Activity Centers” in Taidong, Taiwan

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-125
Author(s):  
Petr Janda
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
Aboriginal Communities ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Symbolic Value ◽  
Suitable Location

This report presents current research on aboriginal activity centers in Taidong County, Taiwan, primarily in the townships of Chishang and Yanping with over 30% of the population being of aboriginal ancestry. Taidong County is the region with the most distinctive aboriginal communities in Taiwan. The research attempts to identify the actors behind the operation of such centers and their significance for aboriginal communities. The research investigates the process of selecting suitable location for the facilities, the specific features of such centers, the potential religious significance of the locations including the role of traditional beliefs in predominantly Christian aboriginal communities, the symbolic value of structures built in the traditional style for construction of ethnicity and financing that enables the construction of the facilities and the organization of the festivities held in them. The principle research method used was interviews with local actors including local representatives, organizers of festivities, as well as members of local communities. The research began in 2017.

Against Permanent Sovereignty

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Status ◽  
Made In

The status quo within international politics is that individual nation-states enjoy extensive and for the most part exclusive rights over the resources falling within their borders. Egalitarians have often assumed that such a situation cannot be defended, but perhaps some sophisticated defences of state or national rights over natural resources which have been made in recent years prove otherwise. This chapter critically assesses these various arguments, and shows that they are not sufficient to justify the institution of ‘permanent sovereignty’ over resources. Even insofar as those arguments have some weight, they are compatible with a significant dispersal of resource rights away from individual nation-states, both downwards towards local communities, and upwards towards transnational and global agencies.

scholarly journals Managing sustainability risks of bioenergy in four Nordic countries

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Chr. Hansen ◽  
Nicholas Clarke ◽  
Atle Wehn Hegnes
Keyword(s):  
Resource Competition ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Stakeholder Involvement ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Carbon Pools ◽  
Energy Technologies ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Government Planning ◽  
High Degree

Abstract Background Bioenergy plays a key role in the transition to a sustainable economy in Europe, but its own sustainability is being questioned. We study the experiences of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway, to find out whether the forest-based bioenergy chains developed in the four countries have led to unsustainable outcomes and how the countries manage the sustainability risks. Data were collected from a diversity of sources including interviews, statistical databases, the scientific literature, government planning documents and legislation. Results Sustainability risks of deforestation, degradation of forests, reduced carbon pools in forests, expensive biopower and heat, resource competition, and lack of acceptance at the local level are considered. The experience of the four countries shows that the sustainability risks can to a high degree be managed with voluntary measures without resorting to prescriptive measures. It is possible to add to the carbon pools of forests along with higher harvest volumes if the risks are well managed. There is, however, a marginal trade-off between harvest volume and carbon pools. Economic sustainability risks may be more challenging than ecological risks because the competitiveness order of renewable energy technologies has been reversed in the last decade. The risk of resource competition harming other sectors in the economy was found to be small and manageable but requires continuous monitoring. Local communities acting as bioenergy communities have been agents of change behind the most expansive bioenergy chains. A fear of non-local actors reaping the economic gains involved in bioenergy chains was found to be one of the risks to the trust and acceptance necessary for local communities to act as bioenergy communities. Conclusions The Nordic experience shows that it has been possible to manage the sustainability risks examined in this paper to an extent avoiding unsustainable outcomes. Sustainability risks have been managed by developing an institutional framework involving laws, regulations, standards and community commitments. Particularly on the local level, bioenergy chains should be developed with stakeholder involvement in development and use, in order to safeguard the legitimacy of bioenergy development and reconcile tensions between the global quest for a climate neutral economy and the local quest for an economically viable community.

scholarly journals Vielfalt and diversité: how local actors in France and Germany evaluate immigration and socio-cultural heterogeneity

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Schiller ◽  
Christine Lang ◽  
Karen Schönwälder ◽  
Michalis Moutselos
Keyword(s):  
Local Politics ◽  
Original Data ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Cultural Heterogeneity ◽  
Societal Actors ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Urban Level ◽  
And Migration

AbstractIn both Germany and France, perceptions of immigration, diversity and their societal consequences have undergone important transformations in the past two decades. However, existing research has only partially captured such processes. The “grand narratives” of national approaches, while still influential, no longer explain contemporary realities. Further, analyses of national politics and discourses may not sufficiently reflect the realities across localities and society more broadly. While emerging in different national contexts, little is known about how diversity is actually perceived by political stakeholders at the urban level. Given the key role of immigration and diversity in current conflicts over Europe’s future, it is imperative to assess present-day conceptualisations of migration-related diversity among important societal actors.This article investigates perceptions and evaluations of socio-cultural heterogeneity by important societal actors in large cities. We contribute to existing literature by capturing an unusually broad set of actors from state and civil society. We also present data drawn from an unusually large number of cities. How influential is the perception of current society as heterogeneous, and what forms of heterogeneity are salient? And is socio-cultural and migration-related heterogeneity evaluated as threatening or rather as beneficial? Based on an original data set, this study explores the shared and contested ideas, the cognitive roadmaps of state and non-state actors involved in local politics.We argue that, in both German and French cities, socio-cultural heterogeneity is nowadays widely recognized as marking cities and often positively connoted. At the same time, perceptions of the main features of diversity and of the benefits and challenges attached to it vary. We find commonalities between French and German local actors, but also clear differences. In concluding, we suggest how and why national contexts importantly shape evaluations of diversity.

Parliament, Privy Council, and Local Politics in Elizabethan England: The Yarmouth-Lowestoft Fishing Dispute

1990 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Dean
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
Central Authority ◽  
Privy Council ◽  
Clearing House ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
Major Exception ◽  
The Government

In his celebrated presidential addresses to the Royal Historical Society between 1974 and 1976 Sir Geoffrey Elton explored three “points of contact” between central authority and local communities: Parliament, the royal council, and the royal court. Parliament, he argued, was “the premier point of contact,” which “fulfilled its functions as a stabilizing mechanism because it was usable and used to satisfy legitimate and potentially powerful aspirations.” Elsewhere Elton, and other parliamentary historians such as Michael Graves, Norman Jones, and Jennifer Loach, have stressed parliament's role as a clearing house for the legislative desires of the governing class. The author of this article has recently drawn attention to the pressures which private legislation placed on the parliamentary agenda and the attempts by the government to control it. All of this supports Elton's contention that parliament, from the perspective of central government, was indeed a vital means of ensuring stability and channelling grievances.However, few studies have viewed parliament from the perspective of the local communities and governing elites who sought parliamentary solutions to their problems or even parliamentary resolutions to their disputes with others. The major exception to this has been London. Helen Miller's seminal study of London and parliament in the reign of Henry VIII and Edwin Green's on the Vintners lobby, have been recently complemented by Ian Archer's on the London lobbies in Elizabeth's reign, Claude Blair's on the Armourers lobby, and my own study of the struggle between the Curriers and Cordwainers. These not only reveal the broader context of such disputes, but emphasize that parliament was only one of many arenas available to participants. This important point has also been stressed by Robert Tittler in his study of parliament as a “point of contact” for English towns.

In the Service of World Revolution: Vietnamese Communists’ Radical Ambitions through the Three Indochina Wars

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-30
Author(s):  
Tuong Vu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
The North ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
The 1950S

The terms “decolonization” and “Cold War” refer to specific processes and periods in the international system, but they do not capture the full agency of local actors such as Vietnamese Communists. Based on recently available archival materials from Hanoi, this article maps those terms onto Vietnamese Communist thinking through four specific cases. The declassified materials underscore the North Vietnamese leaders’ deep commitment to a radical worldview and their occasional willingness to challenge Moscow and Beijing for leadership of world revolution. The article illuminates the connections (or lack thereof) between global, regional, and local politics and offers a more nuanced picture of how decolonization in Southeast Asia in the 1950s–1980s sparked not only a Cold War confrontation but also a regional war.

Sustaining Labor Politics in Hard Times: Race, Labor, and Coalition Building in Racine, Wisconsin

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-63
Author(s):  
Naomi R Williams
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Working People ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract This article explores the shifting politics of the Racine, Wisconsin, working-class community from World War II to the 1980s. It looks at the ways Black workers’ activism influenced local politics and how their efforts played out in the 1970s and 1980s. Case studies show how an expansive view of the boundaries of the Racine labor community led to cross-sector labor solidarity and labor-community coalitions that expanded economic citizenship rights for more working people in the city. The broad-based working-class vision pursued by the Racine labor community influenced local elections, housing and education, increased the number of workers with the power of unions behind them, and improved Racine's economic and social conditions. By the 1980s, Racine's labor community included not only industrial workers but also members of welfare and immigrants’ rights groups, parents of inner-city students, social workers and other white-collar public employees, and local and state politicians willing to support a class-based agenda in the political arena. Worker activists’ ability to maintain and adapt their notion of a broad-based labor community into the late twentieth century shows how this community and others like it responded to the upheaval of the 1960s social movements by creating a broad and relatively successful concept of worker solidarity that also incorporated racial justice.

The Role of Local Actors in Peacekeeping: The Cases of Liberia and Sierra Leone

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Sempijja ◽  
Ekeminiabasi Eyita-Okon
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Strategic Role ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Policy Work

With the advent of multidimensional peacekeeping, in considering the changing nature of conflicts in the post–Cold War period, the role of local actors has become crucial to the execution of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mandate. Just as peacekeeping does not have space in the UN charter, local actors do not have a clearly defined space in the UN-led conflict resolution process. However, they have gained recognition, especially in policy work, and slowly in the academic discourse, as academics and practitioners have begun to find ways of making peacekeeping and peacebuilding more effective in the 21st century. Therefore the construction and perception of local actors by international arbitrators play an important and strategic role in creating and shaping space for the former to actively establish peace where violent conflict is imminent. Local actors have independently occupied spaces during and after the conflict, and although they bring a comparative advantage, especially as gatekeepers to local communities, they have largely been kept on the periphery.

scholarly journals GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE SPACES AS AN INSTRUMENT PROMOTING YOUTH INTEGRATION AND PARTICIPATION IN LOCAL COMMUNITY

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Jaszczak ◽  
Gintarė Vaznonienė ◽  
Bernardas Vaznonis
Keyword(s):  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Community Research ◽  
Health Improvement ◽  
Activity Promotion ◽  
The Status ◽  
Local Actors

Insufficient analysis of green infrastructure spaces benefit to youth activity promotion in Lithuanian social sciences discourse enabled to formulate scientific problem – what can be possibilities of using green infrastructure spaces while strengthening youth integration and participation in local community? The aim of the article – after analyzing social benefit of green infrastructure spaces to youth, to determine their usage possibilities for strengthening youth integration and participation in local community. Research methods: scientific literature, document analysis and synthesis, abstraction and comparison methods. Šiauliai district Kuršėnai town environmentally directed school’s projects were analysed for the case study. For youth, green infrastructure spaces are the areas for environmental education, health improvement, strengthening of their integration and participation in local community through various activities. Youth gradually become involved into social activity where their status of a passive participant changes into the status of an active participant. Case study can be used by various local actors (other schools, community, teachers, parents etc.) strengthening integration and participation of youth in local community by using GI spaces.

Officeholding and Local Politics in Early Modern Wales: A Study of the Salesburys of Rhug and Bachymbyd, c. 1536–1621

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadie Jarrett
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Status

Officeholding was a defining ascpect of early modern Welsh gentility and was more prominent in upholding the status and authority of the Welsh gentry than it was for their English counterparts. Using a case study of the Salesburys of Rhug and Bachymbyd, this article analyses the importance of officeholding to the Welsh gentry after the Acts of Union (1536 and 1543). It finds that the Salesburys were effective local administrators who understood how to use officeholding to enhance their status in their community. At the same time, the family were not isolated in the localities and they continually engaged with the agents of central government.

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